Skip to main content
Dessert

Delicate Apple Pie

A pie made with quartered apples, butter, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Delicate Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Line a pie plate with the crust.

  2. Fill with quartered apples.

  3. Lay the buttered top crust on lightly without pressing edges or cutting holes.

  4. Wet the edges with cold water.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Reduce to 300°F (150°C) and bake for 45 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the top crust while hot, using a knife to separate it from the under crust.

  2. Stir in a piece of butter the size of a walnut and sugar to taste.

  3. Grate nutmeg over the filling.

  4. Replace the top crust.

  5. Serve warm.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pie crust
Holds the filling and browns in the oven, forming the pie's structure.
Apples
Provide the bulk and juice of the filling, with tartness that balances sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the filling and crust.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and softens the sharpness of the sour apples.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice that complements the cooked apples.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges and laying the top crust. Wet edges help the two crusts stick so juices stay inside during baking. Laying the top crust on loosely, rather than pressing it down, lets it expand and vent steam without tearing.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More apple pie recipes

Green 20Dried 19English 13Mock 13German 10Lemon 10 See all 369 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes